read, especially by the ladies in
question and their male relatives; nor did the editors of those papers
forbear to comment on them in leading articles. Shortly afterwards,
there was a great and stormy meeting of Boers at Pretoria. As matters
began to look serious, somebody ventured among them to ascertain the
exciting cause, and returned with the pleasing intelligence that they
were all talking of what the Englishman had written about the physical
proportions of their womenkind and domestic habits, and threatening to
take up arms to avenge it. Of my feelings on learning this news I will
not discourse, but they were uncomfortable, to say the least of it.
Happily, in the end, the gathering broke up without bloodshed, but when
the late Sir Bartle Frere came to Pretoria, some months afterwards, he
administered to me a sound and well-deserved lecture on my indiscretion.
I excused myself by saying that I had set down nothing which was not
strictly true, and he replied to the effect that therein lay my fault. I
quite agree with him; indeed, there is little doubt but that these bald
statements of fact as to the stoutness of the Transvaal "fraus," and the
lack of cleanliness in their homes, went near to precipitating a result
that, as it chanced, was postponed for several years. Well, it is all
done with now, and I take this opportunity of apologising to such of the
ladies in question as may still be in the land of life.

[Illustration: THE BACK GARDEN.]

This unfortunate experience cooled my literary ardour, yet, as it
chanced, when some five years later I again took up my pen, it was in
connection with African affairs. These pages are no place for politics,
but I must allude to them in explanation. It will be remembered that the
Transvaal was annexed by Great Britain in 1877. In 1881 the Boers rose
in rebellion and administered several thrashings to our troops, whereon
the Government of this country came suddenly to the conclusion that a
wrong had been done to the victors, and subject to some paper
restrictions, gave them back their independence. As it chanced, at the
time I was living on some African property belonging to me in the centre
of the operations, and so disgusted was I, in common with thousands of
others, at the turn which matters had taken, that I shook the dust of
South Africa off my feet and returned to England. Now, the first impulse
of an aggrieved Englishman is to write to the _Times_, and if I remember
ri